In fact, you learned a lot, including that you shouldn't take on such a large-scale project, so this can be considered a success
Viewing post in How are you doing with Jam?
That lesson is one I've already learned. The scope was pretty broad, but not overly excessive, but when the complexity is added, and then my day job being busier than expected as well, it all ate into the time I thought I would have, 1 or 2 days, I barely had time to focus on it, and 1 day I was pretty much burnt out. The lost time meant 1 or 2 planned ideas got dropped and I lost the time I thought I would have to focus on refinement.
The most complex parts, the dialogue and music system, were all pretty much built piece by piece from the ground up in a single pass, only minor tweaks were needed to get all the components working together. Because of the lost time outside of my control though, the other elements of the project were rushed.
On the overall scope of the project, while I've seen a lot of projects in jams with stories sacrifice gameplay for story, I wanted to try and find a balance between the 2, I wanted story, but also a game that you actually play, not just read.
I failed on the balance front, this time, but with it being my first attempt on building a story with a dialogue system, and a dialogue system itself, I'm mostly happy with the result.